Birds (class Aves) are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterised by feathers, a beak with no

teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight
but strong skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) bee hummingbird to
the 2.75 m (9 ft) ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at
approximately ten thousand, with more than half of these being passerines, sometimes known as
perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds.
Scientific consensus is that birds are the last surviving lineage of dinosaurs, having evolved from
feathered dinosaur ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. The fossil record
indicates that true birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago.[3]
However, primitive bird-like "stem-birds" that lie outside class Aves proper, in the group Avialae, have
been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period.[1] Many of these early stem-birds, such as
Archaeopteryx, were not yet capable of fully powered flight, and many retained primitive
characteristics like toothy jaws in place of beaks and long bony tails.[1][4]
Birds have more or less developed wings; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa
and elephant birds. Bird wings, which evolved from forelimbs, enabled birds the ability of bird flight.
The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight, although further
speciation has led to some flightless birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island
species of birds. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly the aforementioned flightless
penguins, and also members of the duck family, have also evolved for swimming. Birds, specifically
Darwin's finches, played an important part in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural
selection.
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